Improving the Recovery of Assets Resulting from Organised Crime

Abstract

Over the last few years, the international community as well as States have committed themselves to improving mechanisms for preventing and repressing money-laundering and for confiscation, in particular in the context of organised crime. In spite of this standardising effort, in several national systems the level of application of the offence of money laundering by judges and courts is less than satisfactory. Existing legal mechanisms aimed at confiscating assets of criminal origin are not giving the expected results. The intended aim of this work is to put forward solutions to the practical challenges in order to help legal measures being effective in practice, taking into account the differences between national legal cultures. In order to define the topic, after an introduction to the difficulties of implementing international standards, the paper focuses in particular on overcoming internal obstacles, not on aspects relating to international cooperation.